


dream maker, heart breaker

by UneSalade



Category: The Politician (Netflix), The Politician (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, But mostly angst, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Fluid Sexuality, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide, Survivor Guilt, Threesome, because Ben Platt has a knack for conjuring up ghosts, if you really squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-11-08 19:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UneSalade/pseuds/UneSalade
Summary: "You won't survive here if you keep being this soft, River.""I know," he says quietly. "I know."





	1. Chapter 1

"You won't survive here if you keep being this soft, River."

"I know," he says quietly. "I know."

There are moments where Payton thinks he should have seen it coming. Should have recognized the signs, should have said something or did something--anything at all. Like anything might have made a difference, when you're living in a town like this--but maybe it could have. Hindsight is 20/20, said some unimportant wise man no one fucking cared enough to remember who to attribute it to. Or maybe it wasn't a wise old white man, then--it was probably a woman, or a person of color, or some other slice of minority who weren't allowed make pithy statements until the late twentieth century. But he should have. He should have.

Like this one, where River is holding their hands together because he just made Payton inexplicably cry again in the middle of a Mandarin lesson. It's becoming an uncomfortably frequent occurrence--River asking him something inane with perfect diction and grammatical structure, like "How was your day?" or "What are your plans for tomorrow?" and Payton will hear that slight American accent creeping into his tongue curls and pursed lips; will find that he doesn't even care that neither he nor River will ever be able to speak Mandarin like the native-born, that he'll probably be embarrassingly, hopelessly dependent on his interpreter when he's doing diplomatic rounds in Asia for both of his terms as President (though, then again, what prior President has even bothered to try to learn how to speak a non-Indo-European language, and how many have successfully made their way with just incisive, blustering, confident English? And who's to say China will even remain a global superpower by the time he ascends into office?); will think of how fitting it is that this boy who lives next door, with these sad eyes and this warm smile that doesn't belong in this part of society, can't escape the reality of who he is, just like Payton can't escape his own destiny--and after a few blinks, snot and tears will be dripping down his face as he tells River that he had a tomato bisque with freshly baked bread for lunch today.

"How do you keep doing this to me?" he had whined.

River had shrugged, had lifted his fingers to his face and ran his thumb along the corners eyes more gently than his own mother has ever touched him before. "I can't help it," he smiled that particular smile he always gave him in moments like these, that smile that was maybe more pained and guilty than he realized. "I'm sorry," he says, and Payton knows now that he really meant it. "Can I kiss you, again?"

And Payton would nod and in the seconds it took for River to travel the thin space between them, he would hate that he always asked for permission, that he never told him what he needed, that he seemed to always be giving up bits and pieces of himself to people ready to devour him whole, that he never asked for anything in return. That he didn't really understand this boy at all. That no one did.

But then he'd replace his thumb with his lips, and everything would disappear for just a few moments. Enough for him to feel a little more human again. Like he's not faking it, for once in his life.

Sometimes, when he's sitting at the piano conjuring ghosts out of nowhere, or when he and Alice are sitting quietly together in one of their manicured lawns pretending that nothing is going wrong or that everything is going right, he wonders what his note would have said. He doesn't try to understand why he didn't leave any sort of explanation; he avoids thinking too deeply on whether he should have given an explanation at all, because maybe the answer is just too self-explanatory. But he does wonder if he would have written just one note for everyone, left it at a notarized final will and testament, or sent out separate letters for the most important people in his life. He wondered if, he hoped, he knew he would have gotten one. And he hates how he's not sure if he's relieved or angry or sad that, in the end, he didn't leave anything for anyone at all.

No--he did leave something for Payton. And just for him. Only him. Maybe that's why he let him be the last person he saw. Maybe that was what he wanted. Or maybe that was what he settled on.

"I love you," River told him for the first time when they were driving down the coast in Payton's car, at River's insistence, because he's apparently taken making sure that Payton 'relaxes and lets himself breathe every once in a while' to be his civic duty. It's the first time they've technically been out in public as...whatever it is they are.

Payton had almost driven them over the railing in shock.

He might have never stopped gaping at him if his wheels or his fender, or some other part of his car he honestly didn't care enough to pay attention to, didn't scrape against the curb. River just chuckled, completely unfazed by their idiotic brush with death.

After the roar in his ears died down just enough for him to hear his heart working too hard in his chest, he tried to figure out what to say. He ends up with a pathetically small, "You do?"

"Yes. I do."

"But why?"

And he could feel River looking at the side of his face, could imagine the pitying furrow between his brows--because how sad is it to not understand how love works, how anyone would want anything to do with him for the sake of something so bland and unearned, how anyone would do anything for him just because they liked him for who he was and not who he was going to be. To think that it's something that _he _can have, no strings or stipulations or secure trust funds attached—because he knows River wants something. Everyone wants something. Maybe it's even worse that he hides it so well, that he can pretend to be so selfless and generous and authentic, that he doesn't ask for it and expects that it will be given to him in time. But then River's drawing his right hand from where it's clenched onto the wheel, and when he finally turns to look at him, he's smiling at him. They charge into a sharp bend in the road, and the orange sun is suddenly shining into his eyes, blasting River into filaments of gold. Payton isn't sure if it's become easier or harder to breathe.

"Because I see you," he had said. He lays their hands down to rest between them, interlocking their fingers.

Payton drives one-handed the rest of the way, feeling transparent in a way he's not sure he's completely O.K. with but decides to accept just for now, thinking about how Santa Barbara is actually kind of beautiful if you looked at it at the right angle, at the right place, at the right time. They rolled into a hole-in-the-wall diner towards the end of the road where most (read: all, except for River, and now him) of the rich kids from their side of the tracks would rather die than be seen patronizing there. The highest price on the menu was $10. The food was passable. River left the waitress a $200 tip, then gave her $100 more when she asked him if it was a mistake.

Maybe he should have seen it there—the way he so easily gave things away. Because even the obscenely rich will hold onto every penny and ounce of power they have without media coverage or some other more valuable incentive. Most of them live too high up and ensconced in marble and imported diamond to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future. Them, including him, his parents, everyone in and against his campaign team and their parents, over seventy percent of the students at their school. Them, which should have included River.

But Payton let him pull him into one of their Olympic swimming pools anyway (he doesn't remember who's--it might have been River's) screaming and fully clothed, because he had refused to accept his offer to give him his own even more vintage and expensive car, the one that he says he barely drives and doesn't actually like even though it has several thousands miles on the odometer and glints like it's cut from gel, because he felt bad that Payton's got a scratch or a dent from their trip down the coast. And Payton ignores the momentary shutter that flits across his face when they hit the bottom of the pool, because he didn't know he was holding a weight down here just a few months ago, because River's arms were wrapped around him and he didn't let go when they finally came back up for air, because River was laughing like he didn't have a care in the world, and suddenly Payton was too.

Payton didn't take the car. He did accept another biography to add to his shelf--_The Last Lecture_, by some professor at Carnegie Mellon who died from cancer. Well-thumbed through, hardback spine cracked down the middle with white veins reaching into the cover. He had laughed derisively at first--because, really, River, could anything be more kitschy and on-the-nose and maudlin? River had insisted that, yeah, maybe it wasn't _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_, but it was still important and meaningful. Payton had rolled his eyes and stuffed it into the far corner of his shelf, thinking that maybe it could at least make a halfway decent bookend.

He's taken it out and shoved it back in at least fifteen times in the past week, trying and failing to get past the fucking dedication.

Because then he'll be thinking about that quiet moment they had after they managed to extricate themselves from that stupid and unimaginably awkward ménage à trois (he refuses to call it a threesome because that would made it cruder than it already was) with Astrid, where Payton had to take three shots past his standard acceptable BAC threshold just to step into River's bedroom, where Astrid had already taken her bra off and was disaffectedly raking her eyes up and down his body like she was looking at a particularly boring Rothko or Stravinsky. He had made sure that River was between them at all times. She definitely noticed, but he didn't really care, because when she finally put on her high heels and stalked out of the room with a dissatisfied curl to her mouth, River pulled him back onto the bed and smiled at him.

They stared at each other and started talking about meaningless things, because Payton's a little drunk, which he tries his best to avoid because he hates feeling so slow and distant from himself--like he's reaching for the wheel to steer himself back to where he was going before, but it's just out of reach, and he's going on an unplanned detour he knows he'll regret when he finally wakes up. "It's unfair that you have such a well-constructed name," Payton mumbled.

"Well-constructed," River had laughed. "What does that even mean?"

"It means there's between ten to over a thousand popular songs--maybe less over time, as rivers evaporate or become flooded lakes due to catastrophic climate change--someone can dedicate to you. Or be reminded by of you. Like, 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.' 'Cry Me a River.' 'The River of Dreams.' 'Moon River'--"

"'Wider than a mile'? 'Heartbreaker'?" he chuckled. "Hardly flattering, that one. Two of them are frankly depressing--"

"--all _adoring_ and frankly beautiful _classics_. Sorry I'm not a walking jukebox. Or iPod. Or whatever."

"Fair enough," River knocked his bare shoulder against his. "But hey, Payton Hobart is a pretty hefty name in itself. Lots of hard consonants nestled against soft vowels. Poetic in its own right."

"Please," he snorted. "No one will make a song about a 'Payton' unless it's by a spurned lover brutally name-checking their ex. Hobart sounds like the protagonist of a controversial Nabokov novel. Presidential, absolutely. But not poetic."

River hums thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll write a song about you. A ballad."

"I'll be sure to have the masses sing it at my nationally televised memorial service."

They fall silent, warmth breaths and dying light wrapping around them. Payton starts dozing off against his will. Then River runs his thumb against his cheek. "Do you know that song by Joni Mitchell? The one that goes something like…" he hums, a little out of tune.

"The Christmas one?" Payton huffs. "The one called…'River'?"

"Yes, exactly," he grinned, "that one."

"What about it?"

"Sing it for me?"

"Right now?" Payton narrowed his eyes. "How do you even know that I sing?"

"You told me in Mandarin. You used to make up songs to sing over Bach and Mendelssohn to force yourself to keep practicing the piano when it got boring."

"Oh. You remembered."

"Of course I remember," River had said. "Will you sing it for me?"

Payton had opened his mouth to ask what was in it for him to do that. But River was looking at him with an openness he'd never seen on anyone else before--soft and vulnerable, like he had nothing to hide. So instead he cleared his throat, warned him that he wasn't warmed up yet, so don't go spreading his name for hire for the upcoming bar mitzvah season, and sang.

River watched him the entire time, with an intensity that made him feel uncertain and even more naked than he already was. So he closed his eyes early in the song, and kept them closed when he finished. River ran his fingers through his hair, so gently that he couldn't resist looking just to make sure he wasn't imagining it. He was smiling at him again, that same smile Payton hasn't seen him give anyone else just yet.

"You're the most authentic person I know, Payton," he said, slow and serious. Payton had laughed, because that had to be most blatant lie he's told him yet. But then he watches his throat bob up and down, sees the sadness ringing his eyes, and he realizes that he actually means it. So he takes a breath and kisses him.

On certain days, when he's too tired to catch himself thinking about it again, he understands that maybe it was his fault.

Because maybe he should have seen it the first time he barged into his home and screamed at him for betraying him. He should have seen how weird it was for him to be sitting alone in a bathrobe, looking lost and guilty, like he was caught doing something even more culpable than running against him. Maybe he should have seen it the second time he barged into his home and asked him why he was doing this when he had it all, when he had nothing to lose, why he kept hurting him like this.

Because he thinks he knows what he needed now.

He wishes he could have given it to him.

He should have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben Platt, why do you keep breaking my heart?
> 
> This all came out in one long semi-fugue state, after semi-binge watching The Politician, because I can't stop thinking about this relationship we hardly see on screen, but haunts scene after scene after scene.
> 
> So here we are, lol.  
(A note that I might [probably will?] add a bit more, either an edit or another chapter, as I yet have 3 episodes left to sob over, ahaha).  
(also apologies (? kind of ?) for the shifts in tense--kind of on purpose, kind of indecision; would love your thoughts on that, if you feel so inclined!)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading--any and all comments and feedback are much appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: suicidal ideation

If Payton was being really honest with himself, there was a long stretch of time when he thought about death in a non-abstract way.

He still can't even say it plainly to himself, let alone to anyone else, because even though he's been on the brink of being successfully murdered two or three times, even though he knows how to feel and cry uncontrollably and finally be vulnerable with the people he's hurt beyond repair, wanting to die is something else entirely. And if he can't say it to himself in front of a mirror, he's definitely not brave enough to say it on a stage to an audience he no longer had.

It had hit him with an awful sort of clarity--the strongest sense of purpose he'd had since he'd lost the election and Harvard and home and drove everyone away from him--when he dropped his mom off at the airport. He didn't know when or how he would do it, but he knew he couldn't live like this forever. He told River as much, when he was driving back to the house that was no longer his in the car he would soon have to sell.

"Are you sure?" River asked.

"I'm more sure about this than becoming President, or anything else, at this point," Payton said, with a harsh and self-pitying laugh he couldn't keep from escaping.

River didn't say anything until they were idling on the driveway, the sun cresting his father's rooftop in a crown of gold. Payton stared at it until green blobs crawled across his vision. He couldn't look River in the eyes. "Give it some time before you commit to this, Payton."

"I don't know if I can."

"You can," he grabbed his hand. "And you will."

When he finally turned to ask River how he could be so certain of this, how he could have so much faith in him, how he could be so hypocritical, why he won't leave him alone like everyone else, he finds himself staring at an empty seat and the well-manicured shrubbery hugging the driveway that he never actually noticed before. He sat there for a long time, feeling more alone than he's ever felt in his entire life.

But Payton did give it a try. He tried harder than he thought he could. He spent the rest of the school year keeping his head down and eating lunch in the library or not at all. He got a D- in Mandarin. He walked across the stage, looked the principal in the eye when he shook her hand, and drove straight to the hotel his mom booked for the long summer ahead. He didn't bring any of his biographies with him, but he finally reads _The Last Lecture_ on one particularly long and lonely day that never seemed to end, and decides that too many good people die for the wrong reasons. He tells River this when he's lying awake in the dark listening to the air vents shudder, and though he isn't sure if he's even there, he knows River just smiles sadly and shakes his head. He spends some time with Infinity before she left for Paris. Over a plate of the saltiest, unintentionally half-baked fries he's ever eaten, he discovers that she was the one who saved him from dying from a BB pellet soaked in possum guts ("The idiot was inspired by some guy named _Philoctittes_\--can you _believe_ that?") and he stops himself from wishing that she hadn't. He moves to New York because at least one school was forgiving enough to take his money, and he moved there with James because, in spite of everything, he pitied him enough to still be his friend. The first night they spent together in their small, dingy dorm room, lying on their beds staring at everything else but each other, James had asked him if he was doing O.K.

"What does that even mean?" Payton had deflected, because he knew he was too tired to lie.

"You know what I mean," James looked as tired as he did, but not as worn and beaten. He gave him this look that he's almost forgotten James could make, the look he used to give Payton when they were seven or eight and he saw his brothers trip him down the stairs or lock him out of the house, or when he used to go into panicked fits over a bad exam grade. Not pity, or sympathy, or anxiety over the status of Payton Hobart future President of the United States. But concern for Payton, the kid who's fucked up in more ways than one. Payton, his best friend since before they hit the decades-long campaign trail. And Payton wants to lie, but he can't.

"I don't know," he says.

James looks like he wants to say something he doesn't know how to put lightly, and Payton doesn't think he can bear hearing it. So he thinks about all the things they didn't do in high school, and decides that he can get started tonight.

"Do you want to get a drink? I hear there's a good bar a couple blocks from here."

So Payton spends his days in classes and his nights drinking and playing the piano and wandering dark streets slick with rain and neon lights. He sees River more and more often, and sometimes he thinks he's real. He talks to him when he's walking through Central Park, or buying groceries, or nursing his fourth glass of something pretentious and alcoholic, and he doesn't care if people walk a little farther away from him. There's one night where he decides to take the subway down a few stops further than usual, and he walks and walks and walks until he's standing on the George Washington Bridge, just looking out into dark, choppy waters and the blinking lights of distant urban life. River bumps his shoulder against his.

"Nice view, isn't it?"

Payton shrugs non-committally. "It's alright. I can see the appeal, but it'd be better to drive off the Santa Barbara coast than jump over the guano-stained rails here. In my opinion."

River leans his forearms against said guano-stained rails anyway. "You're still thinking about it, then?"

"I haven't stopped thinking about it," Payton says, and he doesn't feel as unsettled about it as he did when it first became an option. "I gave it time, River. Like you said I should."

"And you still want to do it?"

Payton doesn't know how to answer him. He doesn't know if it's because he's unsure or if it's just inevitable, whether he's aware of it right now or not. "You know, I passed by a gun store on the way here. I think I might have seen it in one of those old mobster films."

River looks at him carefully, running his eyes up and down and across his face until Payton feels like he's being seen right through. "That's not surprising," River says lightly, "you've probably walked through at least twelve Hollywood sets since you came here."

Payton stuff his hands into his pockets. It's bitterly cold. "I thought about getting one. Small, like the one you had, with just one bullet."

River pauses. "It's not that easy to--"

"I know I can get one. I mean, I bought out the local gun store at Santa Barbara, didn't I? The whole reason why gun violence is such a rampant crisis in America is because it's so easy to get one, isn't it?" Payton takes a deep, shaky breath. "I just think it'd be the easiest way. Maybe that was why you did it. More privacy than jumping. Quicker than hanging or drowning or slitting your wrists, if you do it right. Definitely less painful and gross than pills or poison," he laughs and it sounds like a wheeze, his chest aching from the smog and the chill, "speaking from personal experience."

"Payton, I think you need to give it more time--"

"How much more time is enough time, River?" He clenches his fingers in his pockets, but he can't feel them anymore. "How much time did _you_ take before you decided to--"

"Not enough time," River puts both hands on his shoulders and squeezes them tightly enough to hurt. "You need to go home now, Payton. Get some sleep."

"I can't," Payton shakes his head and he's embarrassed to feel heat pooling around his eyes, to hear his voice shake, "River, I fucking can't--"

"I'll walk you back." River looks at him like he used to, back when they were still pretending to learn Mandarin in the bedroom he could no longer return to. "Please, Payton. Will you do this for me?"

And because Payton has never been able to say no to River, he let him take his hand and walk him back to New York, back to the subway station, and back to campus. When he unlocks the door to his room, River is no longer there.

James sits up in his bed. It doesn't look like he's been sleeping. "Payton," he hisses, "it's three AM. The bar's been closed for two hours. Where have you been?"

Payton still has the presence of mind to take off his shoes before collapsing onto his bed. "There are twenty-four hour bars all over New York, you know." His voice is still shaking. "City That Never Sleeps? Ever heard of that?"

"You're not answering my question." He can feel James staring at him, and he hates how the streetlight filters through the blinds, a hideous orange glow.

"I went on a walk, O.K.?"

"A walk to where? New Jersey?"

Payton turns to face the wall. "Go to sleep, James. Sorry I woke you up."

"You're fucking crying, Payton."

And he was. He doesn't know if he started just then, when he was still on the bridge, or sometime in between. "Don't worry about it," he sniffs. "It's nothing."

"Payton--"

"Go to sleep, James," he snaps, more harshly than he's had to anyone in a long time.

There's a long silence. Then James' bed squeaks and groans, and there's just the distant roar of cars and police sirens. For a brief moment, Payton regrets not telling James everything. But then he regrets not staying on the bridge more.

Because then James starts accompanying him to every night to the bar, bringing along his laptop and at least three textbooks, which he splays out at a corner table in full view of the piano. He orders a virgin mimosa and doesn't stop working until Payton is ready to stumble out the bar. Or until James thinks Payton should stumble out of the bar, which is either at 11:30 or when he's two-and-a-half drinks in. Whichever comes first.

"You don't have to keep babysitting me," Payton slurs, "I'm not a baby. Or something to be sat. Satted. Sitted."

"Clearly." He can practically, most definitely hear James roll his eyes. "Otherwise I wouldn't be half-carrying your fully-grown, inebriated ass back to our dorm every night."

"I didn't ask you to do this."

"I know you didn't," James replies curtly.

"Why are you doing this?" Payton trips on maybe every other step of the stairs leading up to their room. He sometimes wonders if James had somehow tricked him into believing the elevator is broken, which has conveniently been out of service ever since James started joining him on his nights about town.

"You know why I'm doing this," James says as he unlocks the door and deposits Payton onto his bed. Payton watches him as he takes off his backpack with a sigh, rolling his shoulders with a wince. He feels guilt curdle his stomach, heavy and cold.

"I'm sorry I'm such a bad friend," he says before he can stop himself.

James pauses. Then turns to look at him. It's that same look again, the one he's been getting frequently enough for it to replace every previous image he's had of James' face. He's forgotten what James looked like when he wasn't concerned. What he looked like when he smiled. "You're not a bad friend," he says quietly.

"You don't have to lie," Payton can feel his bones ache. "I know I'm not someone anyone wants to be around. I never was."

"You're wrong," James leans back against his bed with a sigh "You're difficult to be around sometimes. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend."

Payton swallows hard around the bitter taste of alcohol in his mouth. He wonders if he's going to cry. "I'm really sorry, James." 

"What's going on, Payton?" There's a slight quaver to his voice that makes Payton realize with a start that he's scared. "You've been acting really differently ever since--"

He doesn't finish his sentence, and Payton's not sure exactly when he thinks everything changed. When River shot himself in the head? When he caught James and Alice together in bed? When the Infinity scandal finally came to light? When he almost got murdered twice? When he moved to New York and found out that there's no such thing as a new beginning for people like him?

"Did you ever wonder why River killed himself?" He hears himself ask.

James doesn't respond.

"I see him sometimes," he continues, "when I'm by myself. Or even when I'm not. When I was in the hospital a few years ago, I asked him about it, and he said that it was because he felt everything. That there wasn't enough positive emotion to balance it out." Payton sniffs, but his eyes have never been more dry. "I think I understand how he felt now."

The sound of sirens wail in and out of the long silence that settles around them. Then James clears his throat. "Payton," he says slowly, "have you ever thought about hurting yourself?"

The first thing that Payton thinks of saying is, stupidly, that future Presidents can't be suicidal, or have documentation of mental instability in their medical records. But he thinks about James staying up waiting for him to come back to their room, and he thinks of River telling him that feeling was just what he needed. So he settles into the heaviness weighing down his limbs and says, "Yes."

Nothing happens right away at first. But James does search through his possessions as he watches helplessly, taking away every sharp object he owns even though he told him he wasn't going to cut himself. He starts growing stubble and he hates how it makes him look older than he actually is. James is with him at every empty space between their schedules, and makes him send texts with his current location and a verifiable alibi when they're not together. Then one day, McAfee shows up at their dorm and puts a binder of campus and local mental health resources into his lap, color-coded and tabbed. She programs five different hotlines into his phone ("National and local call- and text-based services, at least one of which should be able to answer you in a timely manner. And if they completely fail to do the one thing they're supposed to do, call _me._"), and forces him to book an appointment with both a campus and community therapist, in case either doesn't work well with him. Payton goes, and tries not to think about how none of this worked for River, how they'll diagnose him as a sociopath first before anything else, how this will follow him for the rest of his life. But they start hanging out together again, the three of them, and it felt strange at first, eating lunch or sitting at the park and talking about things not related to campaigning or the distant future. But Payton starts smiling more than he has been for a long time, and the tension starts seeping out from James' shoulders bit by bit.

When he tells River all this in his dorm room while James is taking a shower, the one time when he's allowed out of his sight at night, he gets a grin. "I'm glad you told someone," he puts his hand around the back of his neck, solid and gentle. "That's something I wish I had done sooner."

"But what if it doesn't work?" Payton whispers. "What if I keep feeling and..._being_ like this for the rest of my life?"

"Then we'll take it one step at a time," he says. "And you'll remember that you're never alone."

"Because I've got you?"

River smiles, and Payton feels warm. "I'll be here for as long as you need me."

And he was there--he was there when he reconnected with Alice and cried in a Harvard coffee shop he might have frequented in another life, he was there when McAfee and James told him about a new opportunity to run for Senate, and he was there when he stood on the steps of City Hall with his old and new friends and enemies, announcing his plan to make a difference. He's still there when he plays the piano, Coke on the rocks resting on the lid. He's still there on quiet nights between long nights planning for the campaign, and he's still there when he's walking through campus or the park, or making his way across the bridge.

And he knows he'll always be there, wherever he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finished season one of The Politician, and, of course, what we get is more angst! Ahaha.
> 
> The ending is a bit (really) meh, but I just got hella sentimental, and we were left on an awfully high and steep cliffhanger, so here we are!!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading--here's to the next season, whenever that might be!


End file.
